


Breathing Easy (And All Its Associated Complications)

by Trixree



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Casual Intimacy, Eventual Smut, M/M, Multi, Pining, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Religious Themes, Whump alert, holy fuck this got really angsty, i just really like hurting sanji, so much pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 12:35:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21849766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trixree/pseuds/Trixree
Summary: Luffy is all he can see.He’s bony and filthy and his arm is burned to high-hell and back. His shirt is open around his skinny chest and his shorts are tattered and in desperate need of repair. Blood from an unseen wound on his forehead trickles into his eyes and mouth. Despite all this, despite all the dirt and the grime and the mess, Luffy is laughing.Zoro knows he’s not the only one staring. Sanji’s got an eye on him, too.Zoro looks at Sanji. Sanji looks at Luffy. Zoro watches Sanji look at Luffy and thinks, "oh. So that’s how it is."
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy/Roronoa Zoro, Monkey D. Luffy/Roronoa Zoro/Vinsmoke Sanji, Monkey D. Luffy/Vinsmoke Sanji, Roronoa Zoro/Vinsmoke Sanji
Comments: 36
Kudos: 339





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> fsfhshfhfshsfhsf I know, I should be finishing the other shit I have posted... 
> 
> This is kind of heavier than some of my other One Piece stuff. Not that the subject matter is any darker or more intense, it kinda just feels like it has this weight to it as I'm writing. Fingers crossed that it's not a bad thing...

Luffy punches a false god out of the sky.

When the chaos clears and the battle is over, Luffy is all he can see.  _ Was there ever anything else? Anything besides this?  _ An ecstatic part of Zoro hums with the revelation. 

The thoughts come from a place of his brain that’s typically only ever responsible for acts of pure instinct. He trusts this center of his brain intrinsically. He trusts it to tell him when a blow is intended to kill or whether it is a feint. He trusts it to tell him when he’s truly gotten himself into something dangerous, something that cannot be survived. He trusts it to tell him when there’s something worth saying (an  _ oath _ worth giving that tastes like his own tears and blood and a gash that nearly renders him in half.) He trusts this part of himself.

Luffy punches a false god through an ancient golden bell and out of the sky and Zoro’s blood  _ sings.  _

(That instinctual part of him rears its head, heavy and unable to be ignored.)

He smiles and closes his eyes, trusting Luffy to make it back down to the ground of Skypeia safely—trusting his nakama to bring him home safely, too. 

_ This is faith,  _ Zoro’s brain whispers with urgency. 

The last thing he hears before succumbing once again to unconsciousness is the chime of the bell. He hears it to his bones, like a great gong. 

_ This is faith.  _

* * *

Luffy is all he can see. 

He’s bony and filthy and his arm is burned to high-hell and back. His shirt tails are open around his skinny chest and his shorts are tattered and in desperate need of repair. Blood from an unseen wound on his forehead trickles into his eyes and mouth. Despite all this, despite all the dirt and the grime and the mess, Luffy is  _ laughing.  _

Zoro knows he’s not the only one staring. Sanji’s got an eye on him, too. 

The cook looks half-charred, like the stiff and blackened crumbs that can accumulate in the corners of an oven or between the plates of a burner. What remains of the cook’s blue shirt is open, parted like curtains around his body.  _ Too skinny,  _ Zoro’s mind offers.  _ He’s a cook and he’s too damn skinny—how does that work?  _ The sight of Sanji, wrecked to high-hell and back, makes Zoro angry. 

Sanji is watching Luffy like there’s something he wants there. __

“What the hell are you looking at?” Sanji grumbles, without taking his eyes off of Luffy. (Zoro doesn’t blame him. Luffy is hard to look away from, like this.) Zoro goes back to looking at Luffy, too. 

“You look burnt,” Zoro growls back.

Sanji struggles to light a cigarette before taking a slow, thoughtful drag. Across the way, Luffy is doubled over laughing at the scolding Nami is attempting to give him. Zoro turns to Sanji. His jaw is clenched tight around the cigarette, near grinding it to bits. His fingers twitch at his sides. 

“You look stupid,” Sanji offers. 

Before Zoro can reply, Luffy is catapulting himself over towards Sanji, whose eyes grow wide like the shiny white dinner plates he uses on the ship. Luffy leaps into Sanji, his rubber hands tight on Sanji’s (skinny, too skinny) shoulders, his legs wrapping once, twice, three times around his waist, his smile bright and bloody. 

With a cry, Sanji stumbles back a step before finding his footing. His hands rise instinctively to Luffy’s lower back, neither moving, fighting, nor supporting him. They just rest there, at the exposed stretch of skin. 

(Zoro wonders what it’s like to be Sanji—what it’s like to touch someone like that. Zoro wonders what it’s like to be Luffy—wrapped around someone like that.)

“Sanji!” Luffy shouts, even though the other man’s face is only an inch or so away from his own. “Let’s have a feast, okay? A real big party!” 

Sanji blows a perfect ring of smoke into Luffy’s face. Luffy laughs and blinks through the smoke. 

“Yes, Captain.” 

“Zoro!” Luffy’s not looking at him, he’s still looking at Sanji. (But Luffy  _ knows,  _ Zoro thinks, Luffy just  _ knows  _ that Zoro is never far—can never be too far from him. He calls his name, never once doubting that Zoro will respond, that Zoro won’t be close by, that Zoro won’t hear him.)

_ Faith.  _

“Hm?” Zoro replies. His feet are rooted to the ground. He could not move even if he needed to. 

“We’re having a  _ party, _ ” Luffy declares. With that, the captain unwinds himself from Sanji and wanders off, pulled by an invisible call to another one of their nakama or to a new acquaintance from this strange land in the sky. Zoro and Sanji remain. 

Zoro looks at Sanji. Sanji looks at Luffy. Zoro watches Sanji look at Luffy and thinks,  _ oh. So that’s how it is.  _

* * *

Later, after the party and well into the night, Sanji finds Zoro camped out far from the center of the party, slumped against a crumbling wall in a light doze.

“We need to talk,” Sanji says, nudging Zoro awake with his shoe. 

“Mm?” Zoro stirs, opening one eye in a lazy greeting. “About?” 

“Jaya,” Sanji replies, the single word coming out with scathing intensity. 

“Ah.” Zoro shifts and pats the ground beside him. After a moment, Sanji sits there. He begins to fiddle with his lighter. The silence stretches for a long while. They’re so close that Zoro can feel the heat of Sanji on his side like a phantom limb. His blood pulses with the almost-contact. 

“What were you  _ thinking?”  _ Sanji bites out, harsh in the night. “Letting that rat faced bastard at the bar—” He cuts himself off. Flicks the lighter on and off again. “What the  _ hell  _ were you  _ thinking?  _ Nami came back in tears and you two were beat to hell and back so you better have a damn good explanation as to why you made a call that left her terrified and Luffy so  _ bloody.”  _

“It was captain’s orders—”

Sanji cuts him off with a glare and hisses, “I said a  _ good  _ explanation. Don’t give me any of that, ‘it was an order’ or ‘in preservation of our pride’ bullshit. What use is  _ pride  _ if you’re  _ dead? _ ”

“They wouldn’t have killed us.” 

“They smashed a bottle over his  _ head.”  _ The lighter flicks on and off. “How could you—? Shit,” the small flame burns the tips of Sanji’s fingers. He tucks them into his mouth quickly to soothe the burn and Zoro has to look away. 

“Cook,” Zoro says after a minute. “I will always follow his orders.” 

Sanji sighs. “I know that. I  _ know  _ that.” This time, the silence isn’t so heavy. Eventually, Sanji stands and gives Zoro’s shoulder a brief squeeze before walking off into the night. 

Zoro watches him go. 

* * *

Sometimes, the sea feels like a cemetery. 

Waves crash dully against the hull of the Merry. The sun isn’t even up yet. It’s just a faint shimmer of orange over the horizon. The scent of acrid smoke undercuts the salt of the water. Sanji breathes it in deep and feels the sea spray settle into his lungs. (Or maybe that’s the tobacco.)

The sea can feel like a graveyard sometimes. It’s funny, how that works. Like the stuff of nightmares, when the sea is dark and wide and unfathomably deep, Sanji feels small and powerless again; feeling two ships collide in a shower of splintering wood and turbulent spray right underneath his feet. (A cruise boat and a pirate ship meet somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, their pieces intermingled and indistinguishable. There are bodies down there.)

Like a fucking  _cemetery_. 

For Luffy, the sea is possibility. It’s an endless landscape of Adventures-Had and Adventures-To-Come and Friends-To-Be and Enemies-To-Be-Defeated. (Sanji can feel like that, too, sometimes. He can feel the All Blue calling to him across the vast distance and then the sea looks like hope. But Sanji knows this part, too.)

Sometimes the sea takes and doesn’t give anything in return. Sometimes it neither gives nor takes and instead, it just watches. 

That’s almost worse than the taking.

The sea can watch a child  _ starve _ . The sea can watch the people you love hack themselves to pieces. It watches beautiful, lonely girls with the weight of a town on their shoulders lie and steal and cheat their way to something that looks like freedom, but isn’t. It watches kids that watch it back, waiting for a parent to come home that probably never will. It watches idiot swordsmen bare their chests to the blade of a psychopath with feathers in his hat and a dagger no bigger than Sanji’s favorite cooking knife. It watches princesses in turmoil and beautiful, talented scholars in isolation. 

It watches his Captain, waiting to  _ take  _ from him  and never stop taking. 

Sometimes, Sanji fucking hates the sea. 

He throws his cigarette in the ocean and gets back to work. 

* * *

One afternoon, Sanji heads to the boy’s quarters to grab a change of shirt after spilling a bit of cooking wine on it. As he climbs down the ladder, he notices the two figures on the couch. 

Zoro is sitting upright with Luffy’s head in his lap, the captain curled up and snoring lightly. Zoro has a hand combing slowly through Luffy’s dark hair, the straw hat sitting on the couch beside them, tenderly placed close-by. If Zoro has noticed Sanji’s presence, he hasn’t alluded to it. The expression on his face is tender, even  _ worshipful  _ as he watches Luffy’s sleep-relaxed face and drags his fingers slowly through his hair. 

Sanji, frozen by the unexpected gesture of intimacy, looks at Zoro. Sanji looks at Luffy. Sanji watches Zoro look at Luffy and thinks,  _ oh. So that’s how it is.  _

He heads back to the kitchen without getting that change of shirt. 

(In the quiet of his mind, something that _wants_ with an impassioned yearning shrivels and cries out in pain.)

Sanji covers his mouth with his hand to keep the sound in. 

* * *

In an hour, Luffy will fight Usopp for the Merry. The echo of the galley door slamming shut in the wake of Usopp’s fury haunts the crew like a shadow. 

Soon after the confrontation, to Sanji and Nami's vocal protests, Luffy stole away to the boy’s quarters after, alone. Sanji had occupied himself with comforting Chopper as best as he could. Nami had stayed with them, too, reeling with the loss of Robin, the news of Merry, and the departure of Usopp all so close together. 

Eventually, Zoro pursues Luffy. 

Sanji looks at him, holding Chopper, sobbing, in his arms. 

"What are you waiting for, asshole?" Sanji says quietly, rubbing a hand gently up and down Chopper's fur. Nami sits at the table, her face buried in her arms. Zoro doesn't think she's crying, but still. You never know. "Go. He needs you." 

There's no question about who Sanji is referring to. "Okay," Zoro says. For a moment, he thinks to reach out and touch Sanji, too. Press his shoulder into his or give a gentle grip to his arm. Maybe even just approach Chopper, cradled in Sanji's arms, and offer some comfort to their youngest member. His gut lurches with the thought. 

(Sanji is better at this kind of thing... at providing comfort. That's not Zoro's place. Never was.) 

He leaves him to it. (He pretends the thing burning in his chest isn't jealously. It certainly can't be longing, either.) 

* * *

The first time they kiss, it’s violent and desperate and all around under awful circumstances.

Zoro finds Luffy sitting on the couch with his hat in his hand, staring at the various creations and half-made inventions Usopp has left strewn across the coffee table. He is silent as Zoro approaches. 

“Zoro…” 

“Captain.” 

“Thank you.”

Zoro nods.  _ It’s simply an extension of my duty to you,  _ his brain offers. That instinctual part of him says,  _ my belief in you is the work of something greater than me, I am helpless to do anything more.  _ He says neither. (He hopes Luffy hears it anyways.) What he does say is:

“It’s almost time.” 

Luffy stands, holding his hat in his hand. He faces Zoro and, suddenly, Luffy’s freehand comes up to touch Zoro on the back of the neck. He holds him there, Captain and first-mate, (divinity and worshiper), by a single hand and by the look in his eyes. 

Zoro is the one to move, leaning down just a little so that their foreheads bump together and they lean into each other. Luffy lets him come, the hand on his neck neither inhibiting nor encouraging movement. Zoro’s lips part and their breath mingles. 

Inexplicably, Luffy says to the space between them, “I won’t take from you.” 

Zoro doesn’t really get what he’s saying. (He thinks he has an idea.) He leans forward and crushes his lips to his Captain’s anyways. ( _ Mistake.  _ He sees Sanji of all people in his mind’s eye. There, he sees the cook watching Luffy, always watching Luffy.  _ This is a mistake.)  _

Luffy gasps into his mouth, shuddery and warm and wet. Zoro surges up like a wave, hands reaching for him, reaching,  _ reaching,  _ and finding purchase in his hair. He pulls him in. Luffy comes. 

Their teeth clack together and it hurts, but Zoro’s tongue still slides between the soft part of his lips, still ghosts along his tongue, his teeth, digging deep and barely coming up for air. Luffy lets him, hand spasming on the back of Zoro’s neck. What was once a gentle hold is now a harsh grab. It hurts. Zoro lets him. 

His hands travel from Luffy’s hair to cup his face. Zoro hasn’t done this before, but his body knows. The instinctual place of him screams  _ mistake  _ and  _ perfect, absolutely perfect  _ and, lost, Zoro urges Luffy’s head back and dives deeper into his mouth with the change in angle. (Luffy lets him.) 

Zoro can feel his own heart beat in his tongue and he can taste the rhythm of Luffy’s in his mouth. Spit drags across both their faces. Their noses bump. Teeth clack again. Still, Zoro grips him harder, pushes into him deeper, and still, Luffy lets him. Zoro thinks in a fever, in a haze, _Sanji would be so much better at this. At kissing. Especially better at kissing Luffy._ The thought urges him to kiss Luffy deeper, more passionately, and he does. 

After an eternity, Luffy’s grip on Zoro’s neck urges him back and away. 

He puts the hat on and leaves. 

(Zoro can’t look him in the eye when he goes.) 

_ Mistake.  _

* * *

After the battle (brutal in its violence if not in its emotion) Luffy comes to Sanji. 

He’s in the kitchen, smoking his third cigarette in a row down to the filter and fiddling idly with his fingernails. Sanji closes his eyes and all he sees is Usopp,  _ their Usopp,  _ getting back up to fight  _ their Captain.  _ The image of Usopp walking away from them forever is fixed into the back of his eyes like a brand. 

The galley door creaks open. 

Luffy’s head is bowed low, hat pulled down to hide his eyes. His shoulders are stiff. He lingers in the doorway, still and quiet.    
  
“Hungry?” 

Impossibly, Luffy shrugs. 

With the dull scratch of the wood chair on the wood floor, Sanji stands and makes his way over to Luffy. He reaches out a hand to touch his captain on the shoulder, to gently guide him to the table for tea or snacks  _ or anything,  _ really. 

Like a dam shattering, Luffy overflows into his touch, taking up all the available air in Sanji’s lungs with the incessant push of his body into the open cradle of his arms. 

_ I’m not equipped for this,  _ Sanji thinks, aching, and he wishes for Zoro to appear. _Where's the damn idiot when you need him?_

(Zoro is always better with Luffy.)

Luffy is shorter than Sanji, but it hardly feels like it with how much  _ space  _ Luffy takes up day in and day out. His laugh alone rips through the air with the force of a tornado. His presence is always the largest in the room… a born leader. He’s louder than life, more vibrant than the sun, and nothing about him is  _ small.  _ No one would dare look at this _fury_ of a young man and call him  _ small.  _

(Here, now, with Luffy’s face smushed into Sanji’s chest and Sanji’s arms wrapped tight around his captain’s shoulders, all Sanji can think is,  _ “Gods, he’s so small.” _ ) 

Luffy’s grip on the back of Sanji’s shirt is so tight it almost hurts. His shoulders shake in minute little shudders, up and down, up and down. Sanji wants to swallow him up into his arms, keep him there and never let him go. He’s startled by the intensity of the thought and settles for bowing his head, pressing his face into the top of the worn straw hat and breathing in deep the scent of straw and sun and sea spray. Luffy presses himself impossibly closer. 

They stand like that for what could be minutes or what could be hours. 

* * *

Sanji makes brief eye contact with Zoro the next day, before everything goes to shit. 

(It feels like betrayal.) 

* * *

On the train to Enies Lobby, Luffy corners him. 

“Is Zoro mad at me?” 

Zoro nearly trips, startled by the sudden question and the sudden presence of Luffy’s voice as he’s trying to put on his new clothes. His ankles get tangled in the pants and he almost falls on his face.

“What? No. Of course not,” he replies, finally getting the damn things on. He turns to face Luffy. 

Luffy is  _ still shirtless.  _

Zoro turns back around. 

In the corner, smoking, Sanji watches. 

“What did you do, Marimo?” He asks, eyes narrow. Zoro can practically feel them drilling holes into his back. 

“None of your damn business, shit-cook.” 

“Are you sure Zoro’s not mad?” Luffy asks again, still holding the shirt in his hands, still bare from the waist up. 

Zoro fights down a furious blush. “No, I’m not.” 

“Okay, then!” Luffy springs forward and hugs Zoro tight from behind. The warmth of his bare chest  _ burns  _ against Zoro’s skin. In a moment, he’s gone, bounding over to Nami probably to listen to (and subsequently ignore) the plan she’s come up with. 

Zoro turns and finds Sanji’s gaze locked on him. It burns. 

“Luffy! Shirt! On!” Nami bellows, shoving him out of the way. 

With a devious laugh, Luffy springs back over towards Sanji, like a pinball, and Sanji catches him by the shoulders. All without breaking heated eye contact with Zoro, Sanji fishes Luffy’s discarded shirt off of the floor and hands it off to Luffy, who again darts away. 

Sanji’s eyes say,  _ Hurt him and I kill you.  _

Zoro’s eyes say,  _ Fuck.  _


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zoro clenches his fist so tightly that his knuckles creak. That deep, instinctual part of him yearns. He just can’t decipher what it’s yearning for. For Luffy? Or the cook?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what I'm dooooinngggg   
> Please enjoy this garbage fire of angst and orgasms and kisses

The Strawhat crew find themselves all crammed into a booth at a bar nestled in the heart of the capital city of an island called Moth. It's named after its wing-shaped bay, Nami had told them all cheerfully. The place is loud with the chatter of patrons and the laughter of women. A steady haze of smoke hangs in the air, smelling on all sides like Sanji-but-not. Zoro wrinkles his nose. 

Usopp is drunk already and slumped against Zoro’s side, half-asleep and watching people come and go from the bar with half-lidded eyes. Chopper isn’t faring any better, sleepily tucked into Robin’s lap while she chats with one of Moth’s scholars over martinis. Franky, their newest crew-member, disappears after a few moments to join the band. The music swells with their vibrant addition as Nami wins yet  _ another round of poker  _ at a table across the way, sweeping huge piles of money into her arms ravenously. On Zoro’s other side, Luffy eats. 

Zoro watches Sanji dance.

The bar plays a silky kind of music with low, crooning notes that Zoro couldn’t identify if he damn well tried to. It’s sensual. The music charges the air like lightning. 

(Usopp snuffles drunkenly against his shoulder and starts to drool. The atmosphere is well and truly ruined up until the moment Zoro turns his attention back to the dance floor.) 

The twist of his body is a vile thing. Sanji is all limbs and grace and a barely restrained lethality that spools like liquid through his bones. He’s got a girl (Zoro doesn’t give a flying fuck what she looks like) in his arms, pulled close against his chest, swinging her to the beat. He dips her and Zoro follows the curve of his spine like a starving man. 

Sanji abandoned his suit jacket a long while ago and unbuttoned his dress shirt mid-way down the chest to accommodate the warm atmosphere in the bar. Under the dance floor lighting, even at a distance, Zoro can trace every bead of sweat with his eyes. 

Sanji twirls the girl and it puts his back to Zoro. His slacks pull tight against his ass. Zoro swallows hard. 

The song ends and the girl goes to step away. Sanji lets her. He graciously takes her hand and gives it a kiss. She’s clearly not interested in anything else. The damn cook lets her go, watching fondly, hands tucked in the pockets of his pants. 

The music starts back up. It’s a bouncy beat, something you’d swing a partner round and round to. Sanji turns back to the table—probably to get another smoke, Zoro reasons—when a bright red shirt and a straw hat comes bounding onto the dance floor. 

Zoro only realizes that Luffy has slipped away from him and over to the cook when he sees the familiar straw hat catch the light. 

Luffy rushes straight into Sanji, colliding with his torso and linking his long arms around the other man’s waist. Zoro can’t make out what Luffy is saying to him at this distance, but his face is alight and his smile is large. Zoro watches, hawk-like, absolutely entranced, as Sanji shows Luffy where to put his hands (one on the cook’s waist, one in his hand) and how to step carefully so as not to trample his feet. Luffy’s smile could outshine the sun as they start to move together in earnest. 

The dance is tame until Luffy starts to get into it. Soon, he’s flinging himself and Sanji around with barely an ounce of control ,but with enough palpable delight to drown a horse. His cackle is deafening to Zoro, so loud that he can hear his laugh like the chime of church bells even over the great beat of the music. Sanji’s laugh rises like the tide to meet him as Luffy swings himself out wide, letting his arm stretch and stretch. 

He snaps back into place, sending Luffy careening back towards Sanji as the cook does some complicated foot-work. With barely an ounce of effort, it seems, Sanji accommodates the force of Luffy’s flailing, rubbery body, his free hand sliding home on Luffy’s waist just as he comes right back into step. In an instant, Sanji hefts Luffy into the air by his waist, spinning him effortlessly and dropping him into a deep dip that quite literally sweeps Luffy’s feet off the floor. Luffy’s hat is dangling off of his neck by the cord, nearly touching the ground. Sanji is bent over him, cradling him intimately. The position leaves the cook’s hair swept out of his face by gravity. Zoro catches a glimpse of his face in full. His smile is dopey and hopeless. His cheeks are red. His brow is sweaty and curly and beautifully asymetrical. 

Zoro clenches his fist so tightly that his knuckles creak. 

(That deep, instinctual part of him  _ yearns.  _ He just can’t decipher what it’s yearning  _ for. _ ) 

( _ Luffy? Or the cook?)  _

His heart beats painfully loud in his ears. The song ends. Usopp snores drunkenly against his shoulder. 

Sanji and Luffy do not move. Luffy is laughing, smiling so hard that it must hurt his cheeks. 

( _ Luffy? Or the cook?) _

Just as Sanji starts to lift Luffy out of the dip, one hand planted firm and wide in the middle of his back, easing him gently upwards…

( _ Luffy? Or—)  _

Luffy closes the gap between them…

_ (—the cook?)  _

Sanji’s eyes go saucer-wide as Luffy plants a wet, sloppy kiss onto his sweaty forehead. 

The simmer in Zoro’s gut becomes a _ boil. _

Sanji and Luffy are standing on the dance floor. Sanji is frozen and Luffy is just as animated as usual, bounding off to get more food, probably. Sanji is frozen. 

Sanji gets  _ unfrozen _ . 

Across the bar, Sanji’s eyes snap to Zoro’s.  _ Animal magnetism,  _ a voice that sounds suspiciously like Robin’s remarks from inside Zoro’s mind. They hold each other’s gaze. 

In Sanji’s eyes, Zoro sees panic. Neither of them move. (In his eyes, he sees undeniable, gut-wrenching  _ desire— _ Zoro’s  _ own desire— _ reflected back at him _. _ ) 

The boil reaches a fever-pitch. Somewhere in the chasm that is Zoro’s conscious mind, the kettle that’s been sitting on the stove is  _ screaming.  _

_ Go to him,  _ instinct says. 

Zoro goes. 

* * *

_ Zoro is coming,  _ Sanji’s brain helpfully supplies as he watches him slide out of the booth.  _ Oh, fuck,  _ Sanji’s brain (or what remains of it) says. Zoro is stalking towards him purposefully.  _ Angrily?  _ Sanji cannot tell. He can’t even  _ begin  _ to parse everything that he’s seeing in Zoro’s face right now. 

He used to think Zoro was not very expressive. This moment is currently pummeling the living shit out of that assumption. 

_ He’s getting closer,  _ Sanji’s brain offers. His legs refuse to unstick from the floor. All around him, the patrons of the bar are dancing to a new track. Somewhere among the band, the familiar voice of Franky can be heard. Somewhere in the crowd is Nami, swindling some poor suckers out of their money. Somewhere, Usopp has been rudely awakened by his pillow fleeing the scene and is griping to Robin. Somewhere… somewhere is  _ Luffy.  _

_ Luffy who kissed me.  _

Zoro stalks closer. 

_ You should move,  _ Sanji’s brain offers in a valiant attempt at reconnecting to the rest of his body. 

Zoro closes in. His hand is hot and huge around Sanji’s arm. He’s got a damn vice-grip on him and he starts to drag him away, off of the dance floor, out of the bar, out into the night. Sanji, usually, would fight this tooth and nail. He’d protest being manhandled by this damn barbarian until he ran out of air entirely. Unfortunately, his body and his brain have yet to remarry, so he is dragged along. 

Outsite, the air is crisp and unexpectedly cold. 

Zoro finally lets him go in a small alleyway between the bar and the building next door. Sanji can still hear the music and the chatter faintly through the walls. 

“Cook,” Zoro says. He sounds  _ fucked up.  _ His voice is low and hoarse and damn near comes out like a growl. 

“I—”

“ _ Cook,”  _ Zoro repeats, sounding positively gutted. They are very carefully not-touching. 

Everywhere that Zoro’s hands  _ are not _ is a place where Luffy’s hands  _ just were _ and the contrast of that burns like a fucking  _ brand. _

Sanji’s blood hisses in his veins like it’s oil in a hot pan. 

( _ I want him. I want you.)  _

Zoro’s pupils are blown to hell. What color are his eyes, anyways? Sanji can’t tell. Not in the low light. Not with his pupils dilated as wide as they are. 

( _ I want him.)  _

Zoro is damn near panting like he’s been running for his life. His breath ghosts across Sanji’s face, hot and humid and smelling faintly like booze. 

( _ I want you.)  _

Sanji moves rapid and sure—a coiled snake finally striking. His hands grip the back of Zoro’s neck and pull him in. He comes easy. Their lips collide, both already parted and panting. Zoro yelps (possibly even moans) into Sanji’s open mouth, stuttering his exhale between Sanji’s lips. Sanji pulls him even closer, draping his arms across Zoro’s shoulders and hiking a leg up around his waist. They crash together in a flurry of lips and limbs. 

Zoro’s hands are so broad and rough cupped around Sanji’s face, cradling him like he’s something tender—holding him damn near  _ worship-fully.  _ His grip goes tight and he  _ moves  _ Sanji’s head backwards, tilting him and plunging his tongue forcefully into Sanji’s mouth and  _ oh— _ it’s barbaric and rude and so fucking  _ good.  _

Zoro seems to share the sentiment if the way he pushes Sanji up against the wall and grinds his pelvis against him is any indication. 

He’s undeniably  _ hard.  _

Sanji can’t help it. He whimpers. 

Zoro gasps like he’s been electrocuted— _ shocked by lightning,  _ Sanji thinks, deliriously, remembering the scent of his own hair burning as he’s struck by a mad, false god—and pulls away, his eyes searching and frantic over Sanji’s face. 

“Idiot,” Sanji hisses, tugging at Zoro’s shirt, trying to stop him from moving away. He hikes his leg even higher, hooks it around Zoro’s and uses the leverage to tug him closer. “Fucking—just _ touch me _ , please—”

Sanji learns that Zoro takes direction well. 

His calloused hands practically rip Sanji’s shirt out of his trousers. They slide up the bare skin of his back towards his shoulders, hot and frantic. The intimacy of the touch, the brutal  _ consumption  _ of it, sets Sanji on fire. His toes curl in his shoes. No one has ever touched him like this. 

“Kiss me,  _ Zoro, kiss me—”  _

He swallows the sound Zoro makes in response. 

Zoro can’t kiss—every way he moves his mouth is graceful and unrefined. Sanji isn’t disappointed. The thought that Zoro hasn’t done this much, maybe has not even done this  _ ever before  _ makes his dick  _ throb  _ and something competitive in him resolves to take Zoro for a fucking  _ ride.  _

He pulls out all the tricks he knows. He sucks on Zoro’s tongue like he’s trying to blow it. Bites at his lip unexpectedly and soothes the sting away with teasing swipes of his tongue. He melts for him and fights him in equal turns until he feels Zoro’s shoulders start to shake. 

Both of them have managed to find a steady rhythm grinding themselves against whatever part of the other they can reach.

Sanji breaks the kiss with a gasp. 

“Zoro, fuck,  _ Zoro,  _ I’m close,” Sanji offers, squeezing at Zoro’s ass and pulling him just a little bit closer. 

In response, Zoro’s hips give a ferocious jerk against Sanji’s groin and an accompanying moan. It sounds like it’s being  _ ripped  _ out of him and Sanji realizes— 

“You’re  _ coming,  _ oh holy  _ fuck—”  _

And with a few filthy lurches against Zoro’s (insanely muscular) thigh, Sanji goes tripping into orgasm right behind him. 

* * *

They stay out in the alley for a while, avoiding eye contact, shifting back and forth, and gamely trying to gather what remains of their composure. Surprisingly, Sanji is the first to speak. 

“We shouldn’t have,” he says. His lighter flicks to life and the end of the cigarette begins to glow. He takes a deep inhale and exhales smoke through his nose, hardly visible through the darkness of the night. 

Zoro feels the words like a burn. Guilt laces through him harshly. He says nothing. 

Sanji continues, “I know you have a…” he gestures vaguely with his cigarette, grimacing. “...thing with Luffy.”

The guilt lacing through his blood becomes an absolute wildfire. The afterimage of Luffy’s face mid-kiss sizzles across his skin like a brand. The betrayal of  _ this  _ in the face of  _ that  _ is unbearable. But as much as he tries, Zoro can’t banish the sight, the  _ feeling,  _ the  _ emotion  _ of Sanji orgasming against Zoro— _ because _ of Zoro. (In his mind’s eye, Luffy plants a kiss on the cook’s forehead. Chaste. Child-like. Nothing like the way Zoro kissed him. Nothing like the way Zoro kissed Sanji. He thinks, half-insane, _Sanji deserves to be kissed in the way I just kissed him._ ) 

Zoro doesn't regret it. The realization comes hand-in-hand with the guilt of having done it at all. _Luffy..._ he thinks. 

_ Will he understand what Sanji and I just did?  _

“This doesn’t have to come in the way of that. I wouldn’t—” Sanji scowls. “I  _ won’t  _ do that to the pair of you.” 

“You aren’t,” Zoro blurts. 

“What?” 

“He kissed you too, didn’t he?” 

Sanji’s scowl turns into an outright furious glare. “You saw that kiss, that wasn’t—” he huffs out an angry breath before continuing. “It’s not like what you two have.” 

“What is it that we have?” Zoro growls. He takes a step towards Sanji, as if intending to press him, to crowd into his space. 

“You know,” Sanji spits, vicious. “Don’t make me spell it out.” 

“You’re gonna have to.” 

“He fucking  _ loves you,  _ shit-for-brains. Not  _ me,  _ you. He loves  _ you.”  _ Each word is like a stinging punch, delivered with brass knuckles and fury. 

Zoro falters, spluttering. “He loves all of us.” 

“He doesn’t love us like he loves you, Zoro.” There’s something so heartbroken in his voice, like all the anger has just… bled out and left only sorrow behind. Sanji pushes off the wall, grinding his cigarette out against the rough surface and slipping the nub into his pocket. “Won’t happen again,” he mumbles and shuffles out of the alley. 

Zoro watches him go.  __

* * *

Sanji makes the crew (but mostly Luffy) an elaborate breakfast the next morning and pointedly does not look Zoro in the eyes. 

Zoro doesn’t look at him either. He looks at Luffy and Luffy only. 

(It doesn’t sting. Not at all.) 

The Sunny sails on. 

* * *

Luffy brings a skeleton on board. Sanji doesn’t fucking trust the damn thing as far as he can throw him. But Luffy says the magic words and Sanji is helpless to disobey. So he feeds the damn skeleton. And then the skeleton  _ runs away.  _ Across the  _ ocean.  _

Sanji insists on clearing away the dishes before they go rushing after the (potential new crewmate,  _ goddammit)  _ but most of the Strawhats file out onto the deck to check out the imposing (but still fairly distant) silhouette of Thriller Bark. 

The door to the kitchen creaks open and Sanji expects to find Robin, come to help with the mundane chores, or perhaps a frightful Nami or Usopp, intent on hiding from the nightmare that’s sure to come. 

What he doesn’t expect is Luffy, leaning against the counter. 

“Captain?” Sanji starts, perplexed. There’s an adventure waiting right outside. Luffy should be itching to set off into the unknown. But, instead, he’s here. With Sanji. Watching him wash dishes. 

“Brook is lonely,” Luffy says. The words hit like a kick to the stomach. Sanji sets the plate he was drying down carefully. “Brook is lonely, but not like Sanji gets lonely sometimes. Brook is so lonely that he hurts _ all the time  _ and it doesn’t stop and he can’t get away from it.” 

“Luffy…” 

“So, we should help Brook,” Luffy concludes. Carefully, he reaches out and takes Sanji’s hand in his own. His grip is warm and sure. 

Sanji swallows and clutches at Luffy’s hand right back. He’s not sure what he’s being offered, here. He needs to tread carefully. 

“I’m not lonely, Luffy. I have… everyone.”

Luffy smiles like it’s obvious. “I know! But you’re lonely sometimes. Ace would look like that too, when we were kids.” Luffy takes an idle, thoughtless step closer to Sanji.

“It looks like being sad but also a little bit angry, too. Ace looked like that because he felt like he didn’t deserve nice things and not letting himself have nice things was lonely.”  Luffy smiles at Sanji and the brightness in his eyes is the sunrise over the ocean. “Everybody deserves nice things, Sanji.” 

In a flash, Luffy is on tip-toes, leaning up and in to press a tender and precious kiss against Sanji’s stunned lips. 

He tastes like the lunch they just had. He tastes like the promise of adventure. 

“You’ll see what I mean about Brook,” Luffy continues, as if he hasn’t just shattered all of Sanji’s composure in a flat minute. “Are you gonna pack everybody snacks for when we go exploring?”

Sanji is helpless to deny his captain anything. 

_ It’s just his way,  _ he thinks, watching Luffy leave the kitchen, his knuckles white where they grip the counter.  _ It’s just how he is.  _

“I will not come between Zoro and Luffy,” Sanji whispers furiously. “I will not.” 

* * *

Kuma offers a deal: a life in exchange for their captain. 

Zoro stands up. 

_ No,  _ Sanji thinks, panic setting in.  _ Not him.  _

Sanji stands up. 

“Tell the others that they’ll need to find a new cook,” Sanji tries to be flippant, but it’s obvious that his tone falls flat. He can’t look Zoro in the eyes. If he does, he’s not sure what he’d say. 

_ I’m doing this for you as much as I am doing this for him.  _

Would Zoro even believe that? Sanji isn’t sure that he _himself_ would have believed it until this very moment. Watching Zoro stare down Kuma, faced with the undeniable prospect that Zoro  _ would lose his life for Luffy,  _ some buried part of Sanji reared its head and screamed,  _ not the men I love.  _

_ Not the men I love.  _

_ I love— _

Zoro hits him with the hilt of his katana, right in his broken ribs. Sanji feels himself crumble like glass.  _ Not strong enough,  _ a very weak part of his mind whimpers.  _ I wasn’t even strong enough to die for them.  _ He curses Zoro out—he can’t fucking help it. 

Before unconsciousness takes him, Sanji’s final thought goes a little like this: 

_ My last words to him should have been, “I love you” not “damn you”.  _

* * *

It couldn’t have been Luffy. It definitely couldn’t have been Sanji. (He very carefully chooses not to examine why.) So, Zoro goes with the warlord. 

When he strikes Sanji, a curious emotion overtakes him. Even as Sanji falls, even as his visible eye clouds with pain and swims with encroaching unconsciousness, Zoro can’t help but be struck with an overwhelming sense of fondness. 

_ He’s so pretty,  _ Zoro notes distantly. Something warm curls in his chest. 

He’s content. He’s ready to die for his captain (and for their cook, too.) Zoro has spent his whole life in service of another, trying to live for all the moments Kuina will never get to have. He found value in his service of her memory. 

Zoro has become more than a memory, now. He is Luffy’s second in command. He is Chopper’s space heater. He is Nami’s reluctant companion. He's  Usopp’s friend, Robin’s “swordsman-san”, Franky’s bro, and Sanji’s rival. These are not minor things. That fond feeling in his chest grows warmer, still. 

Zoro knows that Sanji is going to take amazing care of Luffy. They will have each other, even in his absence. Failing that, they will have the rest of the crew. 

Going to his grave with blood in his mouth, Zoro thinks,  _ this is faith. _

His world becomes fire. 

* * *

It’s so early that it’s still dark outside. The ocean and the sky are indistinguishable from each other—both are dark as darkness can be. There aren’t any stars out tonight. 

Sanji got up this early for a reason. 

After the whirlwind that was Thriller Bark, the crew was finally able to settle back onto the ship only just yesterday. Zoro is now secure and stable in the infirmary under the watchful eyes of Chopper, to everyone’s relief. With all the hustle of dividing up the treasure and the supplies and the news of Ace’s deteriorating Vivre Card, they’ve barely had any time to settle.

So, Sanji got up this early for a reason. 

In the privacy of the pre-dawn (having already relieved a grateful Franky from watch) Sanji leans against the railing of the ship, lights a cigarette, stares out at the ocean, and allows himself to fall to pieces. 

His sobs are ugly things—full bodied things. For all that his shoulders shake and his spine shudders with the force of his tears, he doesn’t make a sound. Sanji clenches his teeth tight around the cigarette in his mouth, wraps his arms around himself, and just…  _ feels.  _

And what he  _ feels  _ is pretty fucking terrible. 

Sanji is in love with Luffy and Zoro. Not just Luffy. Not just Zoro. Sanji is in love with  _ both  _ Luffy and Zoro. And Zoro and Luffy are dancing around each other like idiots, caught in Dumbass-Limbo together. Not only did Sanji already effectively come between them by  _ humping Zoro in an alley,  _ Luffy keeps  _ kissing  _ him. Which… Sanji can’t even begin to unpack that. No one knows why Luffy does anything that he does. It’s easier to focus his energy on Zoro and, well… Zoro knocked Sanji unconscious just so that  _ he  _ could be the one to die for Luffy.

Zoro is overwhelmingly in love with Luffy. Anybody with eyes can see the way those two moon over each other. The tenderness with which they treat one another is so glaringly obvious that people on the moon can see it. 

And Sanji  _ loves  _ the way that Zoro goes soft when he watches Luffy shake with laughter across the room. He positively  _ adores  _ watching the way Luffy will drape himself over Zoro for impromptu naps. There is nothing that makes Sanji feel as content as watching the two men he loves love each other. 

He’s  _ weak.  _

He’s not enough for Zoro (his guilty, guilty eyes watching Sanji shake in the alley— desperate to hold it together, to not let it show how much he wanted more, to not let it show how _sorry_ he was) and he’s certainly not enough to die for Luffy. 

So, Sanji cries. 

If he lets himself have one moment of weakness, maybe it won’t feel like he’s falling to pieces every second. Maybe his folly won’t seep out from the cracks in his facade if he lets it escape, just this once… 

“Sanji?” 

His heart sinks somewhere between his feet. The unmistakable, rubbery smack of Luffy’s sandals on the deck of the ship are louder than his own heartbeat. Sanji doesn’t turn around. 

_ Fuck.  _

“You’re up early,” Sanji says after a moment. His voice comes out surprisingly normal, all things considered. 

Luffy comes to a stop just behind him. Sanji doesn’t turn around.

“Mmm, couldn’t sleep.” Luffy yawns. 

Sanji nearly jumps out of his skin when Luffy places a warm hand on his back. Luffy takes a shuffle-step forward and rests his forehead against it, leaning against him with a contented hum. Smoke leaves Sanji in a hard and heavy breath as he adjusts to take Luffy’s weight. 

“I want to go see Zoro, but Chopper said I shouldn’t bother him.” He can feel Luffy speak against his back, even through his shirt. His breath is warm. 

Sanji swallows. “He’ll wake up,” he affirms, praying the wobble in his voice isn’t noticeable. 

Luffy’s arms wind around Sanji’s waist. He slumps more heavily against him. Sanji fights down a shudder. He focuses on the in-and-out of the smoke from his lungs. Luffy rubs his face—lazy and catlike—against the fabric of Sanji’s shirt, almost nestling into his back. 

“Come inside with me,” Luffy says, not asks. It’s very clearly not something he’s asking. 

“Soon,” Sanji replies. 

“Mmm… Now. You’re cold.” 

“I’m fine.” 

“You’re not.” 

“Luffy—”

“Sanji, you’re not.” Luffy tugs on his waist, pulling Sanji away from the banister, away from the deep, dark sea. “C’mon.” 

Sanji scrubs his face with his sleeve. With a sigh, he lets Luffy turn him around. Luffy doesn’t look surprised to see the blotchy, snotty mess that is his face right now. Instead of reacting in any outward way, Luffy simply takes Sanji’s hand and pulls him towards the galley. 

They sit side by side on the aquarium bench. It’s quiet. Luffy doesn’t let go of his hand. Sanji knows he should ask him to let go—he  _ promised  _ Zoro he wouldn’t get in the way—but he just can’t bring himself to. He  _ hates himself  _ for it... for this _damn_ _weakness._

“I dunno what happened when that bear-guy showed up, and I’m not gonna ask. That’s for Zoro to tell me, if he ever decides to.” Luffy rests his head on Sanji’s shoulder absently. Sanji tries, he really tries not to tense up, but he does. Luffy probably notices. He continues anyways, “But you were there when it happened and you’re not okay and that’s okay.”

“I’m…”

“You’ve been sad since we left that moth island with that really good bird-jerky.” 

“...Yeah, maybe.”

“I don’t know how to help. Zoro might know, but Zoro’s not awake right now.” Luffy grips Sanji’s hand just a little tighter. His body is one long line of warmth against Sanji’s side. “So I just need to ask you how I can help and you just need to tell me.”

Sanji breathes in slowly and exhales all in a rush.  _ Here we go. Leap of faith,  _ he thinks, and steels himself. 

“Luffy, you and Zoro are happy together, yeah?” 

Luffy is audibly confused. “Whadd’ya mean?”

“Like, as a couple, Luffy. As romantic partners.”

“Oh! I don’t know.” 

“You… don’t know if you’re happy?” Sanji’s stomach  _ sinks.  _

“Nah, I don’t know if we’re a couple or whatever.”

Time passes by very slowly. Sanji blinks. He hears the words, but they don’t make sense. He blinks again. “What?” 

“Well, we kissed and stuff, with tongue and everything—which Ace said was a big deal and now I get why—but I don’t think we should have because Zoro didn’t say he wanted to and Ace said that I always have to  _ ask  _ for that kind of thing, otherwise it’s  _ taking  _ and I don’t want to take anything from Zoro,” Luffy says all in one breath. “And then I thought he was mad but he said he wasn’t and we haven’t done it again since, even though I think I want to.” 

“Luffy, wait,  _ what—” _

“Because Ace and Makino both told me that sometimes people get feelings towards other people—like squishy, squirmy feelings in your stomach and your chest—and it means they like each other in a ‘more than friends’ way. I felt like that when Zoro and I kissed but I feel like that with you, too... and Ace ‘n Makino never said anything about feeling ‘feelings’ for two people at once, so I’m not sure.” 

Finally, Luffy stops speaking. The two sit in silence for a moment. Luffy’s quiet because he’s run out of things to say while Sanji has been baffled so thoroughly that words are failing him. After a truly exhausting moment of stress and confusion, Sanji lets out all his breath in a huff. He leans his head against Luffy’s, tentatively. 

“Luffy, what do you want?”

“Right now?” 

“Sure. Yes.”

Luffy thinks for a moment. “Well, I’m hungry, so I want bacon and those waffles you make with the fruit in them... and sausage, too. Also, it’s cold so I want to keep sitting here with you for a while, ‘cause you’re warm. And I want Zoro to wake up so that we can kiss more, if he wants to.” 

“Believe me, Luffy, he wants to,” Sanji says, feather soft. 

“Do you?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you want to kiss me?” Luffy moves away, sitting facing Sanji with their hands still intertwined. The expression on his face is serious, but it’s also hopeful. 

Sanji takes a deep breath.  _ Leap of faith,  _ he thinks. 

“Yes. I’d like that very much,” he says. 

“With tongue?” 

“Yeah,” Sanji says on an exhale. “If you want.” 

“Do you wanna kiss Zoro, too?” 

This one takes a moment, but the answer comes nonetheless. “Yes, I do.” 

Luffy smiles. It’s nearly blinding. 

“Okay! Let’s tell him when he wakes up!” and Luffy leans forward and plants a messy, unpracticed kiss right on Sanji’s lips. It’s over in an instant, Luffy springing up off of the bench. “Can you make breakfast now?” he asks. A positively devilish smile passes over his face. “I’ll kiss you if you do,” he sing-songs, rocking back on his heels. 

“You do  _ not  _ get to ransom kisses for food, you bastard,” Sanji growls, but he’s laughing— _ gods, is he laughing.  _

There's still a lot to think about. There's a lot to talk through, too. 

Sanji _knows,_ deep down, that what Luffy and Zoro have is more serious than whatever _this_ is between him and Luffy. And, well. He doesn't want to be a temporary thing, to them, to either of them. Sanji doesn't think he could manage that. It would hurt too much to be there but not be enough. But, as Luffy steals chaste little kisses over the stove all throughout breakfast preparations, Sanji thinks that it might be worth it, no matter how much it'll hurt when it ends.

Sanji finds himself smiling into each and every one of those kisses, consequences be dammed. 

* * *

Zoro wakes up, but there isn’t time to talk. They run into Duval and then Hachin and Camie. Then comes Saobody park, the auction house, and... 

* * *

Two years is a long time. 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](https://trixree.tumblr.com/) and scream incoherently at me


End file.
